CARIBOU, Maine — The defending Class D state champion Central Aroostook Panthers proved they are also the best in Aroostook County.

At Friday’s Aroostook League championships held at Caribou High School, the Panthers scored 56.1 points to earn first place. Houlton was the runner-up with 48.8 by edging out Presque Isle, which posted 48.4.

The Houlton Shiretowners are back in the State Cheering Championship again. The team is much more inexperienced this year and the Shires were able to improve all year long and qualify for the States this weekend.

...“I’ve been cheering for eight years and this is the best performance I’ve seen in eight years,” said Bangor senior Olivia Heanssler. “It was amazing. We really brought it today and the fans really helped our performance.

“It didn’t matter what place we got, we wanted to hit our routine perfectly, better than we did at the regionals. And that’s what we did,” added Heanssler.

Bangor turned in a score of 91.8 at the regional to edge Lewiston by 1.6 points.

“They did the best that they could possibly do,” said elated Bangor co-coach Kate Robichaud whose 2016 Bangor team finished second. “It was a lot better than the regionals, actually. It was an unbelievable performance. They were rock solid in all of their stunts and a huge factor was all of the fans here today. We had tons of support.

...“We want to show people what Hermon cheering’s all about and we want to prove to everybody what we can do, but, yeah, we definitely feel the nerves with everyone watching us and having their eyes on us. It’s a pretty crazy feeling.”

It may have been a crazy feeling for the Hawks, but it surely wasn’t unnerving as Hermon cruised to its eighth state championship overall and seventh in the last eight years at the Cross Insurance Center with a comfortable six-point victory over runnerup Ellsworth.

“Today’s performance is by far the best one we’ve done,” said Peirce, one of just three seniors on the 21-member Hermon roster. “We were so prepared today, we were really ready. We knew what the stakes were and we put all of our effort and motivation into this and we came out on top.”